Whatever Happened to Compassionate Conservatism?

Thursday, 12 March 2015

"We are warriors for the dispossessed," said Michael Gove, the Chief Whip, as he delivered a speech at the Legatum Institute to launch the book, 'The Good Right'.

The Rt. Hon. Michael Gove, Chief Whip, delivered a rousing speech in praise of the Coalition’s record in promoting prosperity. Gove was on hand to launch The Good Right, Tim Montgomerie’s and Stephan Shakespeare’s collaborative effort to restore public faith in the Conservative Party.

For too long the party had allowed Labour to portray itself as the party of compassion, Gove claimed. This was not only the wrong message to send the electorate, it was also historically wrong: some of the most important policies to protect the vulnerable and poor were the work of Conservative, not Labour, governments. From Arthur Balfour’s Education Act and Harold MacMillan’s house building programme to Margaret Thatcher’s unleashing enterprise, Tory leaders had understood that the State can be an enabler.

David Cameron had continued this tradition, Gove maintained, by accepting the State was both “guarantor of security and the emancipator of all”. The Coalition’s success in turning around the economy, argued Gove, had enabled Britons to “see that rewards in our society spring from effort or enterprise”. In this way, the present Government had proved that a sense of fairness motivated its policies. Gove praised also the work of Iain Duncan Smith, whose reforms had made work pay once again. The Work and Pensions Secretary had increased employment so dramatically, Gove argued, that “Yorkshire has created more jobs than the whole of France”.

Syed Kamall, Conservative MEP, concluded the evening with a personal testimony: the son of a bus driver, Kamall said he had become a Conservative at the age of 20 because he felt this was the Party that recognised work as a moral endeavour, and even the humblest workers as worthy of respect.

The foundation

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